The Simplest of Answers
by Karen Hikari
Summary: It started with a knock on the wall of the corridor that lead to the kitchen. "Dad, can I ask you something?" he inquired. "Why me? I can understand why you decided to take Max in. He was a warlock and you couldn't just hand him over to the Clave. But I'm a shadowhunter, the Clave would have taken decent care of me so―why did you decide to keep me?"


**Guess who is coming back from the dead! Well, maybe that's exaggerating, but I've been away long enough for it to be at least a little credible.**

 **I've actually had this story finished for a while but... life has been quite successful stopping me from publishing it.**

 **First of all I want to say that this wasn't meant to happen. I told myself I wouldn't write anything that contained Rafael until I had actually read "Lady Midnight", but then Malec Week happened and everything went to hell because I was filled with Lightwood-Bane family feels and... this story (along with some other which you will be able to see soon... hopefully) happened.**

 **Well, this is already long-overdue as it is so... I'll let you read! I hope you enjoy it!**

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 ** _The Simplest of Answers_**

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It started with a knock on the wall of the corridor that lead to the kitchen. It could have been a knock at the kitchen's door, probably, except that there wasn't any door to knock at there and no one ever asked permission to enter the kitchen. However that day Rafael knocked.

"Dad, can I ask you something?" the boy inquired standing in the door frame. He was tall enough to appear more than twenty despite being only seventeen years old.

"Sure, come in," Alec answered, not looking up from the several maps he had scattered on the kitchen table. "I'm finishing a couple of things for Aunt Maia, but I should be done in a minute, just–"

"If you are busy, I can come back later," Rafael cut him off quickly, gesturing to step back and leave the room as hurriedly and unexpectedly as he had entered it.

There was something, a throbbing nervousness, a conflicted quivering in his son's voice that immediately told Alexander Lightwood something was wrong.

"Hey, what's that?" he asked, almost dropping the paper he had been reading for what seemed to be the thousandth time. "Maia won't come for this until tomorrow, so why don't you sit and tell me what happened?" Alec gestured to the vacant chair place next to the one he was using.

"It's not important, dad, I can come back later if you're busy–"

"Rafael," his father cut him off, not a real order, although his tone was so low it left no room for argument. Solicitously, the boy took a seat. "Now, please tell me what's going on."

"I just... it's silly, dad, I shouldn't even be asking," Rafael started to say, his eyes too focused on his lap for Alec's liking.

"It isn't silly if it bothers you, son," the older Lightwood said gently, noticing how Rafael visibly flinched at the mention of their relationship. Alright, something was definitely wrong and he was going to get to the bottom of it.

"It's just that... why me?" Rafael let out after a deep intake of breath.

"What do you mean?" Alec managed with a raised eyebrow as he took in his son's distress, the way Rafael hunched over himself and how he avoided eye-contact.

"I can understand why you decided to take Max in, I mean, he was a warlock and you couldn't just hand him over to the Clave," the boy explained rapidly, as if he wanted to blurt everything out before he ran out of courage to say anything at all. "But I'm a shadowhunter, the Clave would have taken decent care of me so―why did you decide to keep me?"

There was a mute plea in his son's voice and in his son's eyes. The way Rafael had at last decided to lock eyes with his father, if only to show they were red-rimmed, made Alec cringe.

The question wasn't heated; it wasn't filled with accusation or indictment. It wasn't even the witness of a sudden moment of insecurity―it was merely a question, a query that had probably been bothering his boy for a long time.

"Oh Rafe..."Alec whispered, trying to thinking of the best way to reassure his son. "Has your father ever told you what happened when we first found Max?" Rafael nodded, though Alec _knew_ his son needed to hear the story again. "I come out of the Academy, raffling all these people standing in the crowd to get to your father, who already had the wailing baby in his arms and, without knowing what I was doing, I asked to hold him and then, all of a sudden–"

"As soon as you did he stopped crying," Rafael nodded with a soft smile.

"Exactly," Alec agreed. "And that's the moment I knew he was meant for us. Something similar happened when I found you."

"I didn't stop crying," the younger shadowhunter argued.

"You weren't crying" Alec pointed out kindly.

"I didn't even let you touch me," Rafael muttered, turning his eyes to the Brooklyn maps on the table merely to avoid his father's gaze.

"True, but there was still something about you that irrevocably pulled me to you, Rafe," Alec replied, extending his left hand to reach for the teenager's hand where it sat on top of the table. "When I found you, you were just a tiny boy, too thin and too terrified. I couldn't have left you there in the middle of nowhere."

"And you didn't," Rafael agreed in a whisper. "But you didn't have to take me to your family and make me a part of it either."

Alec smiled knowingly.

"Remember what I did the first time saw each other?"

"You fed me," the boy nodded.

"Yeah" Alec said. "I was running late for a meeting with the head of the vampire clan because, of course, I got lost and, apparently, your father was right and my Spanish sucked, so I was there, not knowing where I was going but knowing I had to get there soon if I didn't want to upset everyone and, suddenly, I feel a hand in my back pocket, taking out my wallet. So I'm standing there, in the middle of the street thinking 'Holy shit, now this too?' and suddenly it struck me―I was wearing an invisibility rune."

"I'm sorry about that," Rafael tried, but Alec merely waved his hand dismissively.

"That's the moment I decided to go after this little thief because I wanted to find out how it was possible he could see me," Alec continued, not seeming to mind the interruption. "So next thing I know is I'm running behind this tiny shadow trying to avoid tripping over someone while everyone screamed things I didn't understand. You were quite fast, I thought I'd lose you in the crowd."

"I wanted to lose you," Rafael admitted shyly. "But you were quite fast yourself."

"It would have been rather shameful to have a kid outrun me like that," Alec laughed lightly. "But then we reached a dead-end alley. You dropped the wallet and stepped back until you hit the wall, your huge eyes focused on me."

"I thought you'd hit me or yell at me at the very least," Rafael nodded with a lopsided smile that somehow mixed sadness with guilt.

"It had happened before" the older shadowhunter stated rather than asked, to which his son merely shrugged dismissively before Alec continued. "The thing is I had completely forgotten about my wallet. I kept trying to figure out _what_ you were because I could see no demon traits on you. No demon marks in your eyes; no wings; no tail; no forked tongue―which meant you were either a mundane with the Sight or a shadowhunter, and neither of those seemed very comforting at the time."

"You started talking, but I couldn't understand a thing you said," Rafael pointed out.

"I don't know what I told you," Alec agreed. "I can't even remember if it was in English or my attempt at Spanish, but I knew you were terrified and I feared you'd start running again." He explained. "I figured you wouldn't appreciate me getting near you, so I had to gain your trust somehow."

"You offered me an apple," the boy nodded quietly.

"You were so thin and so small," Alec added. "I remember thinking that the only reason someone your age would be stealing was hunger. Your eyes lit up so beautifully when they saw me take out that apple, I…" Alec sighed. "It was painful," he admitted. "You were too young to be moved so much by such a simple thing as being offered something to eat. No child should ever have to worry about starving. In that moment I just wanted to drop to my knees and hug you."

The mental image of what the amazing man in front of Rafael had wanted to do ―and more so, what he _had_ done― upon only finding him, a thief who had just stolen from him, the idea that he had been found by someone so kind enlarged Rafael's smile.

"You showed it to me and gestured for me to walk over to you," Rafael said instead.

"Exactly, but you wouldn't, so I–"

"So you left the apple on the ground and then stepped back so I could take it without going too close to you," Rafael completed Alec's sentence for him.

"I counted the fact that you actually had decided to accept it as a small victory," Alec said. "Although you did touch me that day, if I recall correctly."

"When you gave me the bottle of water," Rafael nodded. "My fingers barely ghosted over yours, though."

"But they did," Alec pointed out. "That was something."

"What happened then?" Rafael asked, brow creased, as if worried he had completely forgotten the event.

"Then my phone went off and you walked right back to the wall of the alley."

"Your alarm scared me," Rafael admitted. Alec merely smiled warmly before continuing.

"It was Lily, calling because the person she had recommended to come solve the problems of the vampires in Buenos Aires was nowhere in sight and forty minutes late to the meeting. The Argentinian vampires were fuming. Lily was, as well."

"And then? Aunt Lily can be quite a problem when she wants to," the boy pointed out.

"Then nothing. I told her I was lost and that my Spanish sucked so couldn't communicate. She laughed at me and promised she'd explain and try to send someone to look for me, if she didn't forget to do it, which was not very comforting." Alec shrugged.

"I can totally picture Aunt Lily doing that," Rafael pondered. Sincerely, he loved the vampire, she had a true lion's heart and a sarcastic attitude that somehow managed to be charming. However, he was also aware that, when she wanted to, she could be a true pain in the ass.

"The thing is that, as soon as I hung up, you pointed to the _parabatai_ rune on my neck and screamed '¡ _Runa_ *!'" Alec resumed his narration. "It was the first coherent thing I heard you say."

"I barely spoke," Rafael excused himself. "And that was the first rune I saw in years. I just... I thought that―I couldn't remember my parents, not their faces or their voices, but I knew they'd worn a tattoo like that. I just... I don't know how… I reached the conclusion that if you had one... if you had a rune like that then―then you were trustworthy."

Aware that there was no way to express in words the sudden wave of warmness and gratitude he felt, Alec found himself smiling to his son instead of trying to speak.

"You ran to me and threw your arms around my neck and, suddenly, you were crying, openly crying and all I could think was 'Dear God, what did I do? What did I do?'" Alec laughed, too touched by the mere memory on a regular basis and even more so now that he had heard from Rafael's lips what had crossed his mind.

"You held me," Rafael continued, letting his left hand hit the table softly to mark his point. "You held me. You had no idea who I was or where I'd come from and yet you still held me."

"You had no idea of who I was either, and yet you still clung to me," Alec argued gently. "Although, to be honest, I had no idea of what I was doing, except that I needed to make sure you were alright. I needeed to make you feel safe. I guess, in the end, paternal instincts kicked in."

For a moment, they didn't say anything, too caught up in the loving stare the other gave them. Finally, Rafael decided to break the silence.

"I can't remember what happened next," he admitted sheepishly.

"You cried yourself to sleep," Alec supplied in a gentle tone. "You fell asleep, with your head supported on my shoulder. I remember thinking 'Okay, I can do this. I can do this' because if you woke up and tried to run away again remembering you didn't know me I would have no idea of what to do."

"Did Aunt Lily actually send you a rescuer or did she not?" Rafael inquired next, aware of the laugh in his voice upon the idea of his dad struggling with anything, especially taking care of a kid. Alexander Lightwood was a natural with children, instinctively pulled to helping others. He always had the right words on the tip of his tongue, the perfect caress in the palm of his hands; he just never gave himself credit for it.

"Oh, she did," his dad continued, rolling his eyes. "A clueless vamp that hardly knew what I was doing in Argentina. Although, truth to be told, he did get us to where we were supposed to go. Everyone was furious at me, but held their horses because, well, at least I had finally arrived. They also called for a translator once my hopelessness at Spanish was established," he laughed.

"Why... why did you do that?" Rafael inquired, that insecurity back to his voice. "Let your job at risk like that just―for me? I mean, I was... I was nothing."

"You were a child, Rafael," Alec said gently, giving his son's hand a tiny squeeze. "None of what had happened to you was your fault. I would have lost my job a thousand times over just to make you feel safe."

There was such a blunt truth to that statement that Rafael couldn't do anything less than lean forward to rest his head on Alec's shoulder, seeking for a comfort that no matter how many times he had feared as a child would be torn from him, it had always remained there, constant and silent, but always present, like the calming waves of the ocean. Out of pure instinct, Alec's hand reached up and started stroking his son's hair.

"You trusted me," Alec said. His voice tainted with wonder despite how many years it had been since the events he was relating. "You woke up a couple of times during the meeting which, for the record, I'm still surprised they allowed me to keep you at because, after all, it was top secret and stuff." Alec smiled. "Probably Lily told them I was just as efficient while watching over a child, since she often discussed the issues of her clan with me while I had Max on my lap."

"I used to hate vampires," Rafael mentioned in passing.

"I noticed," Alec nodded. "You agitated and struggled in my arms every time you turned around and saw them, until I hushed you and whispered in your ear. It'll never cease to amaze me, how you turned to look at me and were suddenly breathing evenly again."

"I don't... I don't know why I did that either," Rafael admitted. "I hardly remember, I just... You were nice to me and I guess I... liked your eyes? They're nice, you know? It's quite probable I hadn't seen someone with such blue eyes in my life," Rafael suggested, with no real aplomb.

"Flatterer. You trusted me," Alec repeated. "Despite the fact you had just met me and despite how much you'd suffered, you trusted me. It both broke my heart and melted it at the same time. You were just a kid. You shouldn't have needed to cling to whatever hope a complete stranger could give you."

"That stranger was the best thing that could have happened to me," Rafael pointed out gently, leaning a little more towards his father.

"You didn't know that yet," Alec shrugged. "You used to hide behind me, remember? Especially when the Clave sent their social workers."

"They were a pain in the ass!" Rafael tried to defend himself.

"They were," Alec agreed. "The first year you spent with us they came over every single week just to make sure the 'warlocks' influence wasn't affecting you more than it was reasonable', those bigots. And they certainly were an issue. As if it wasn't only thanks to that warlock's magic that you managed to sleep two hours in a row."

"The nightmares were... they were something else," he admitted awkwardly, shifting in his seat.

"They were," Alec agreed, his voice tainted with hurt at the memory. "Your papa conjured them away, but his spell barely lasted a couple of hours before you started screaming again."

"How did you... how did you do that?" Rafael inquired softly. "When I woke up crying it was never more than a few seconds before one of you came running into my room."

"We took turns staying up," Alec conceded nonchalantly.

"I'm sorry for that too," Rafael said in a small voice; Alec only shrugged.

"Don't be sorry, Rafe" Alec said kindly. "It was not worse than having Max calling for food every two hours. We loved you both and we wanted to be there when you needed us."

"I was also scared of Papa" Rafael pointed out shyly in a grimace after a moment of silence.

"You were," Alec nodded. "It wasn't as bad as with the vampires or with the Clave members, you just... kind of tensed up around him, avoided eye-contact with him, those kind of things."

"His eyes scared me," Rafael admitted in a whisper.

"I know."

"You were both trying to help me, to save me, but no, I had to go and make everything harder for you, as if it wasn't bad enough already."

There was no real heat to his words, barely a defeated tone tainting them. But it was still there, and it hurt Alec to think that his son could be blaming himself for something that was, in no way, an accountability of his.

"That's okay," Alec whispered back. "It wasn't your fault, you know? We didn't blame you for anything."

"I know you didn't," Rafael nodded. "But still. I never even apologized to Papa for that."

"And you don't have to, Rafe. He doesn't mind," Alec assured his son. "I knew he used to be scared of his eyes as well, when he was younger. Besides, you did end up hiding behind Magnus, if I recall correctly."

"I did. It was when Thomas Hightower came over to check on me," Rafael nodded. "Papa opened the door without a second thoughts and–"

"We were expecting Catarina," Alec explained in an interruption that his son didn't mind.

"So instead of Aunt Cat in comes this enormous man that seems terribly offended because how is it possible that a warlock opened him the door and he suddenly starts asking for me and saying I-don't-know-what," Rafael shrugged. "Also, you were in the kitchen, so hiding behind you wasn't an option."

"He wasn't that big," Alec pointed out with a smile. "Your papa was a couple of inches taller."

"Sure, but he was still pretty tall for five-year-old me," Rafael complained.

Alec nodded his agreement, but suddenly stopped, brow creased in confusion as he dwelled on something else.

"That doesn't make sense," he concluded. "You said that the only reason you decided I was trustworthy was because I had runes. Every single person the Clave sent to check on you had runes, yet you feared them all. Why?"

Unanticipatedly awkward, Rafael shifted in his seat, though he did not pull away from his father's embrace.

"I... I don't know," he muttered. "You were kind, and gentle. Even though I didn't understand what you said you still seemed good-natured." He started, a soft blush making an appearance on his cheeks. "They just... they seemed darker. They also said things that I didn't understand but somehow what they said felt bad. They would never make or even try to make eye-contact with me, and every single time they appeared you tensed up, so I guess I kind of picked up on that and decided I didn't like them." He concluded, sending a soft smile to his father's lips.

"Thomas was furious," Alec recounted "He stormed into the kitchen yelling 'This abnormality! A shadowhunter seeking shield from a shadowhunter behind a filthy warlock! This is an abomination!'" Rather than mimic Thomas' spiteful tone, Alec recited the quote with a roll of his eyes. "I was mad, too, I wanted to take a broom and kick him out of the house with it, then slam the door in his face."

"I seem to remember you didn't?" Rafael inquired with a raised eyebrow.

"I might have, but when I turned and saw you clinging to Magnus' legs like you usually did with me... when I saw how even though you seemed terrified you still decided to trust Magnus the same way you trusted me I decided that yelling, even if it was only to Thomas Hightower, would make you feel uncomfortable," Alec explained. "So I composed myself and as politely as I could I asked mister Hightower to please leave. He had one job, to check that you were fine and healthy, which you were, now he could just fuck off."

"He never came back," the boy pointed out with slight wonder.

"Of course he didn't. I called Idris and said that if they ever sent him playing social worker again I wouldn't open the door for him." Alec paused, then added. "Quite honestly, it was also a possibility that I asked Magnus to open a portal and send him to the Cochinchina. Would have been good to his pride." Alec shrugged, sending an indignant glare in his son's direction when Rafael didn't manage to hold down his giggles. "Still, now that I stop to think about it, perhaps I should be thankful to Thomas Hightower. He's the reason you started trusting Magnus after all."

"No, he isn't," Rafael denied. "I had already decided Papa was a good person, cat eyes or not, but I didn't dare get near him because I was afraid he'd be rancorous towards me or something. I had been pretty mean to him. But when Hightower arrived for I just reached for him by instinct. And he didn't pull away from me, which was a bonus."

"He would have never done such a thing, grudges or not" Alec defended. "Your father adored you from day one."

"He did, huh?" Rafael said, not a question, not even a statement, but merely a fact that he now seemed silly for having ever doubted to be.

"He did," Alec nodded. "He jokes saying that when he came out of the portal and saw you in my arms he thought 'Holy shit he wants to keep that boy', but I _know_ that he felt exactly the same thing the first time he held you."

"He didn't... he didn't hold me before we came to New York," the boy disagreed.

"Oh, he did," his father remarked calmly. "You were just asleep."

"So... was it then?" Rafael inquired. "When you decided to keep me, was it when you saw Papa holding me?"

"It wasn't," Alec offered with a smile, pulling back from the improvised embrace to face his son, although he kept both his hands resting on the boy's shoulders. "It was when you looked up at me during the vampire meeting. You were so tiny and so fragile I just... I knew I had to protect you."

"Just like that? Without calling Papa or without even knowing anything else about me?" Rafael inquired incredulously, not fully believing there were people quite so disinterested, quite so self-sacrificing. Not fully believing he had been fortunate enough to be found by one of those rare people.

"I knew you were an abandoned shadowhunter in the middle of nowhere. You could have been an abandoned warlock or a baby werewolf for all I cared, the point of the matter was that you were alone," Alec sighed. He had no way to explain what he'd felt as that tiny creature clung to him, but he could try to do it if that was what his son was asking from him. "And about your father, we had already discussed adopting a second child. I can't imagine life without my siblings and I always wanted Max to have that to. So another one was definitely happening. True, we expected someone younger than Max, but... nimieties."

"But... how? I mean, why did you do it?" Rafael insisted after a moment of reflexive silence, his voice suddenly not as calm as it had been during the warm conversation he'd maintained with his father. "Why did you take _me_ in? After the war there were so many orphans! Why did you pick me?"

"Hey, what's with that thinking?" Alec soothed with a loving smile. "I didn't find you, remember? You found me. You're right, there were many orphans, but most of those children had someone to look after them, a grandparent, an uncle, either of their parents' _parabatai_ , an older sibling, even someone from the same Institute they had been living at until then." He paused, grimacing slightly at the thought of so many children in the need of care, of a loving presence in their lives, of a parent. "You, on the other hand, had no one. You had been left alone in the world when you were Max's age. _Max's age_. I imagined something horrible happening to Magnus and I and our baby alone like that…" Alec trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. "It wasn't a pleasant thought." He said, tightening his grip on his son's shoulders as he spoke. "I had to do something for you, so I took you home to my family. "

"It still doesn't make sense," Rafael whispered in a tiny voice. "Unlike Max, I was a shadowhunter. The Clave would have looked after me, someone else, why... why you?"

There was no accusation or recrimination in his son's words, Alec noted with slight surprise. He wasn't asking this because he'd been unhappy, he wasn't inquiring because he questioned the love Magnus and Alec professed him. He was asking merely because the chances that he'd been lucky enough to end up in the Lightwood-Bane family had been slim, yet there he was.

"You were afraid of the Clave members, remember?" Alec pointed out in a soft voice. "Besides, Rafe, I would have never trusted a child, shadowhunter or not, to _their_ hands. Neither would have your father. You were five, and at that time the Clave was terribly thirsty for new recruits. They wanted a warrior. You were a child, not a combatant."

"What do you mean?" his son inquired back in a tiny voice.

"Don't get me wrong, sweetheart. You were a warrior, in a way. You had managed, the Angel knows how, to survive on your own when you were just a scared boy," Alec explained. "But what I mean is that the Clave wanted something else, and you were not ready for that. They would have started training you right away, and you were not prepared for that. You were still so scared, so in need of assurance. You couldn't even see me with my weapons because you immediately started crying. It would have killed you to start training back then."

"Still, how were you so selfless, so... It just doesn't make sense, dad, sorry," Rafael denied once more, his hazel eyes locked with his father's blue ones in a mute plea.

"Oh, Rafe..." Alec smiled, stroking his child's cheek lovingly. "We weren't being selfless, we wanted to keep you to ourselves. Last time I checked, that was called selfishness. Besides, you made your pick when you stole my wallet that day. Hope you're not regretting that now." He laughed lightly.

"I have never done such a thing," the boy replied in a serious tone that surprised his father only slightly. Of course, he mentally scolded himself. Rafael better than anyone knew not to joke when it came to family. "I just... I don't understand."

"And you don't have to," his father assured gently. "Half of the time we do what we feel is right. If we chose to keep you it was because you were meant for us and that's that. I get the feeling we would have found you at some point, stolen wallet or not." He smiled.

"It's just… I was too lucky," Rafael whispered back, allowing himself to smile, if only a little.

"Come here, you," Alec rolled his eyes, taking his son's smaller frame into his strong arms.

Rafael let his father stroke his hair and draw circles in his back, feeling like the five-year-old boy that this very same man would take into his lap and soothe by whispering soft things into his ear that he didn't fully understand but that comforted him all the same.

They stayed like that for a moment, savoring what they had, taking a chance to marvel at the slim possibilities of them being there. At the fact that they had come out victorious in spite of the odds. They stayed like that until Alec spoke again in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Do you ever notice how your father and I did everything wrong?" he mused, pulling back from their embrace to face his son. "First I kissed him in the Accords Hall before we were even dating, ruining whatever chance I had to get a nice wife to pretend to love if things with him didn't work out. We started actually dating, then we broke up. Then I followed him to the end of the world and back without us being anything, and we got back together. Then we were blessed with your little brother and, lastly, with you, our eldest son before we got married. We _literally_ did everything wrong!"

"I wouldn't say 'wrong'," Rafael defended with a grin. "Perhaps just in the wrong order."

"You said it, sweetheart," Alec agreed with a radiant smile.

He'd always hated pet-names, he thought absentmindedly. He rarely used them, but that was one of the things that had changed when he became a parent. He wouldn't allow anyone that wasn't Magnus call him by something that wasn't his name. Yet, with his children, it was different. They merely... came out, as if they were meant to be. Even as they'd gotten older, Alec couldn't help himself.

Usually, that behavior bothered Max, but Rafael had never complained, choosing to smile softly at his father's words instead.

"You're missing the girl" Rafael pointed out then, with a mischievous grin.

"I'm not missing anything" Alec snorted. "Besides, do you really want to see your papa taking care of a _girl_? With skirts and pink dresses and more glitter? He was already bad enough with you two."

"Fair point," his son nodded in a second thought.

"Although you might be right," Alec added then. "Uncle Jace used to joke saying that with me finding children it wouldn't surprise him to come home one day and find out he had a new nephew."

"Aunt Clary said no one knew you were adopting another kid until you showed up with me," Rafael agreed; Alec merely shrugged.

"They knew we wanted another child, that's about all Uncle Jace and Aunt Clary needed to know. Had we been a straight couple they wouldn't have found out we expected a baby until much later, anyways," Alec replied nonchalantly. "Besides, it happened too fast to really do anything other than call Grandma Maryse and ask her to look over your brother while we traveled back and forth to Buenos Aires."

 _There it is_ , Alec thought, catching himself referring to his relatives by the name his children called them rather than by their forenames. He rolled his eyes. The first time he had noticed was actually rather embarrassing, as he'd ended up calling his sister 'Aunt Izzy' during what was supposed to be a serious meeting.

"Wasn't it... weird?" Rafael asked, interrupting his musings. "To have your second son be the eldest? I mean, didn't it feel... strange?"

Laughing, Alec shook his head.

"I wouldn't say strange, just... unusual," he offered. "Yes, we had talked about getting another baby, but all we really wanted was another kid, so it was no big deal. Max, though, should be thankful that he never had to give up being the baby of the family."

"Max is too spoiled for his own good," Rafael replied, although the fond smile in his lips gave him away.

"You know what I always found interesting?" Alec started next, receiving a nod from his son as his only reply. "You were never afraid of Max. You were wary around Magnus at first, even around Catarina, but never when it came to Max. He was completely blue, and terribly clumsy because his horns had just started to grow out and he had yet to figure out what to do with them… but you never–you never seemed to dislike him because of it."

"He was too small," Rafael replied.

"You were barely taller than him, and two years older," his father counterattacked. " _You_ were small."

Knowing he could not win that argument, Rafael only smiled.

"He looked at me like I was… I don't know. Like he actually _knew_ me, like I was already part of his family," Rafael said. "I don't know why. From the day we met. I didn't speak his language, I barely spoke mine, I had nothing to do with him, and yet he... he stared up at me with admiration. I'll never understand why."

Suddenly feeling the need to go find his youngest and hug him until the warlock asked him to stop because he was embarrassing him, Alec smiled.

"See what I mean? You were meant to be ours," he replied softly instead, feeling Rafael's arm around his waist tighten a little.

A couple of silent minutes later, Rafael said it, his voice tiny, almost secretive, but filled with genuineness all the same.

"Thank you," he whispered. Only two words, only everything that he needed to say. Two words that, somehow, summarized years spent together and smiles and sleepless nights and birthday cakes and aunts and uncles and hugs and soothing heartbeats. Two words that meant the world to them both.

"No, thank you," Alec whispered back. "You chose us, after all."

And he smiled because, sometimes, the hardest questions to make had the simplest of answers.

* * *

 **So...? How did that go?**

 **Now, first of all I want to give a huge shout-out to JelloDVDs who was kind enough to beta read this! She's a wonderufl person and you should really go check her story "Malec's Point of View of The Mortal Instruments" (my favorite, if you're wondering).**

 **Also, you know me and I can't see a character that speaks Spanish because I immediatly want to write something that inludes my first language. So there goes nothing**

 ***runa stands for "rune" and, as in Spanish we write exclamation marks at both the beginning and the end of the word or phrase I decided to keep them.**

 **I think that's all for now... I any of you is following "Family Life" I want to apologize for never updating in time, but I promise the next chapter will be up at some point between tomorrow and next week!**

 **Read you soon!**


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